The tracks you see above come from two mature great white sharks, Lydia and Mary Lee, which were tagged as part of an on-going global research project called Ocearch, which is monitoring these majestic creatures for education and to provide valuable data to help conserve the species.

The shark population is under massive attack from human activities such as commercial and recreational fishing, with some reports saying that a staggering 100 million of them are killed every year by us. Clearly this is not a great situation, hence some attempt to understand more about this top tier predator.

Of course things aren’t helped by our irrational fear of being eaten by a shark, fuelled of course by the typical Hollywood nonsense like Jaws and others. The result has been that people simply don’t care about these creatures in the same way as they do about tigers or even elephants.

The tracking and research should help to dispel some of this public ignorance, and provide a more nuanced understanding of why the shark is such a vital component of the food chain, and how we should pay more attention to their well-being. For now, it’s just fascinating to watch the movements of the various tagged great whites as they travel across the oceans.

Nigel is the managing editor of the Red Ferret, as well as a freelance columnist for the Sunday Times newspaper in London. Loves tech and fancies himself as a bit of a futurist, but then don’t we all?

Free Email Newsletter

Help to tackle childhood hunger!

For every completed SaySo For Good survey, a donation equal to one meal is made to our charitable partner Action Against Hunger as part of our on-going mission to end childhood death from hunger and malnutrition. You can read more about our mission here:
http://home.saysoforgood.com/meals/